Joel Freedman: Special interests are the only winners in hydrofracking

Saturday

Jul 26, 2014 at 11:43 AMJul 26, 2014 at 11:47 AM

By Joel Freedman

Because of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, the tap water of Dimock, Pennsylvania, residents bursts into flames with the smallest sparks. They suffer from severe headaches, blackouts and asthma. Horses go blind. Cows drop dead.Wastewater, produced by fracking and containing high levels of radioactivity that wastewater treatment plants aren’t equipped to remove, pollutes the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. The radioactivity in the Monongahela River also threatens wildlife.A house in Bainbridge, Ohio, explodes and 19 other homes are evacuated due to fracking-related high methane gas levels. Groundwater on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavillion, Wyoming, is contaminated by methane. Fracking is the cause.At a hospital emergency room in Durango, Colorado, a healthcare worker treats a man exposed to a chemical spill during a fracking operation. As she helps wash the man, vapors waft from his clothes. A day later her skin turns yellow and within days she becomes critically ill. Luckily, she survives.A hospital in Texas serving six counties near drilling sites reports children’s asthma rate three times higher than the state average.Many scientists believe fracking aggravates the global warming threat because methane, which is released during drilling and when natural gas is burned, is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.The Marcellus Shale, which covers parts of New York, has been particularly attractive to those who want to frack. Public opinion is divided on whether to allow fracking in New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has not made a decision as to when or if fracking will be allowed anywhere is New York. Bills proposing a ban on fracking in New York are stalled in legislative committees.Supporters of fracking contend that government should interfere in business activities, including the fracking industry, as little as possible, and that environmental restrictions on fracking harm the economy and jobs creation.But any economic benefits of fracking have usually been only temporary in places where it is permitted. The main beneficiary of fracking is the natural gas industry. Doing what is good for special interests shouldn’t trump what is good for everyone else. The best interests of the common good in New York would be to prohibit fracking.The Worldwatch Institute concluded its annual State of the World report in 2000: “Species are disappearing, temperatures are rising, reefs are dying, forests are shrinking, storms are raging, water tables are falling: Almost every ecological indicator shows a world in decline. And with the global population expected to hit 9 billion in the next 50 years, those indicators are likely to worsen.”Year after year after year in the 21st century, we have, indeed, witnessed the worsening of such environmental hazards. The pressure put on politicians by multitudes of vocal, voting citizens concerned about the hazards of fracking may be just one struggle in a larger movement to save our planet, but we can at least make sure our health and natural resources are protected from those who view the Marcellus Shale as little more than a giant gas field.Joel Freedman of Canandaigua is a frequent Messenger Post contributor.

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